The Curassow's crest : myths and symbols in the ceramics of ancient Panama /

Helms (Univ. of North Carolina, Greensboro), author of Creations of the Rainbow-Serpent (CH, Feb'96), continues her assessment of thematic motifs and iconographic meanings represented in polychrome decorations painted in reds, purple, brown, black, and white on ceramic vessels from CE 500-1100 burials excavated by Samuel Lothrop and J. Alden Mason in the 1930s from Sitio Conte, south central Panama. In this book's eight chapters--supplemented by 94 black-and-white illustrations, 109 endnotes, 179 references, and an elemental four-page index-- the author interprets belief systems, animal imagery, and sociopolitical characteristics by considering snakes (bicephalic serpents and red-tailed boa constrictors); avians (curly crested great curassows); reptiles (basilisk and green iguanas, and caiman); anthropomorphic figures, creator "Great Mother" and "Great Father"; ocean and shore (life creation symbolism); Y-shaped elements, spirals, and other animals (deer, stingray, sawfish, shark, crustaceans, and scorpions); and mushrooms. Citing ethnographic analogies (especially Miskito, Kuna, Cashinahua, Kogi, and Talamanca peoples), she uses a methodology that employs Peter Roe's paradigm (in The Cosmic Zygote, CH, Oct'82) of lowland South American mythology-cosmology and ideational connections. Helms's two volumes may be used in conjunction with Lothrop's Pre-Columbian Designs from Panama (1976). Highly recommended to students and specialists in Central American archaeology, art history, and mythology. Upper-division undergraduates and above. ; National Endowment for the Humanities